Footfall hit by end of discounting and weather bomb

High street shopper numbers failed to climb in the week to December 13, dropping 4.0% year on year, despite there being just being a few weeks left until Christmas.

A return to pre-discount pricing following Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Manic Monday and the so-called weather bomb produced a 2.3% slump against the same period in 2013 across all retail locations, and a rise of just 0.6% week on week.

The high street was the biggest casualty, dipping 1.1% on the previous seven days. Shopping centre footfall grew 2.9% week on week, but delivered a 2.4% drop on 2013. Retail park traffic grew 1.7% both week on week and year on year.

Springboard marketing and insights director Diane Wehrle said: “The adverse weather will also have had an impact, with the ‘weather bomb’ hitting the northern part of the UK the hardest. Footfall dropped in all regions apart from the East and the Southeast from the same week last year, and in terms of change over the week, it was Northern Ireland and Scotland – where the weather hit with most severity – that recorded the greatest drops in footfall (6.7% and 3.1% respectively).”

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